AP Psychology Unit 2: Cognition, Memory, and Intelligence

Vocabulary practice flashcards based on Unit 2: AP Psychology lecture notes covering Sensation and Perception, Cognition and Problem Solving, Memory Systems and Processes, and Intelligence and Testing.

Accommodation

(1) In sensation and perception, the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus images of near or far objects on the retina; (2) in developmental psychology, adapting our current schemas (understandings) to incorporate new information.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of existing schemas.

Autokinetic Effect

The illusory movement of a still spot of light in a dark room.

Binocular Cue

A depth cue, such as retinal disparity, that depends on the use of two eyes.

Change Blindness

Failing to notice changes in the environment; a form of inattentional blindness.

Cognition

All mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communication.

Color Constancy

Perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflected by the object.

Perception

Interpreting, organizing, and making sense of sensory stimuli.

Perceptual Adaptation

The ability to adjust to changed sensory input, including an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Perceptual Constancy

Perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent color, brightness, shape, and size) even as illumination and retinal images change.

Perceptual Set

A mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another, often based off expectations.

Phi Phenomenon

An illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession.

Prototype

A mental image or best example of a category; matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories.

Retinal Disparity

A binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes distance—the greater the disparity between the two images, the closer the object.

Convergence

A cue to nearby objects' distance, enabled by the brain combining retinal images.

Inattentional Blindness

Failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere.

Monocular Cue

A depth cue, such as interposition or linear perspective, available to either eye alone.

Selective Attention

Focusing conscious awareness on a particular stimulus.

Stroboscopic Movement

An illusion of continuous movement (motion pictures) experienced when viewing a rapid series of slightly varying still images.

Concept

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Convergent Thinking

Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

Creativity

The ability to produce new and valuable ideas.

Divergent Thinking

Expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.

Metacognition

Cognition about our cognition; keeping track of and evaluating our mental processes.

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Algorithm

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem; contrasts with usually speedier but also more error-prone use of heuristics.

Heuristic

A simple thinking strategy—a mental shortcut—that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than an algorithm.

Availability Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (due to vividness), we presume such events are common.

Representativeness Heuristic

Judging the likelihood of events in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information.

Belief Perseverance

The persistence of one's initial conceptions even after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Confirmation Bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence.

Executive Functions

Cognitive skills that work together, enabling us to generate, organize, plan, and implement goal-directed behavior.

Fixation

In cognition, the inability to see a problem from a new perspective; an obstacle to problem solving.

Framing

The way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments.

Insight

A sudden realization of a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy-based solutions.

Intuition

An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Nudge

Framing choices in a way that encourages people to make beneficial decisions.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Central Executive

A memory component that coordinates the activities of the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad.

Encoding

The process of getting information into the memory system, for example, by extracting meaning.

Storage

The process of retaining encoded information over time.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Memory

The persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information.

Long-Term Potentiation

An increase in a nerve cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation; a neural basis for learning and memory.

Neurogenesis

The formation of new neurons.

Parallel Processing

Processing multiple aspects of a stimulus or problem simultaneously.

Phonological Loop

A memory component that briefly holds auditory information.

Visuospatial Sketchpad

A memory component that briefly holds information about objects' appearance and location in space.

Sensory Memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system.

Iconic Memory

A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.

Echoic Memory

A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within $3$ to $4$ seconds.

Short-Term Memory

Briefly activated memory of a few items that is later stored or forgotten.

Working Memory

A newer understanding of short-term memory that involves conscious, active processing of both incoming sensory information and information retrieved from long-term memory.

Long-Term Memory

The relatively permanent and limitless archive of the memory system; includes knowledge, skills, and experiences.

Explicit Memory

Retention of facts and experiences that we can consciously know and declare (also known as declarative memory).

Implicit Memory

Retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection.

Episodic Memory

Explicit memory of personally experienced events; one of our two conscious memory systems.

Semantic Memory

Explicit memory of facts and general knowledge; one of our two conscious memory systems.

Flashbulb Memory

A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event.

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories of facts and events for storage.

Memory Consolidation

The neural storage of long-term memory.

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Automatic Processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information (such as space, time, and frequency) and of familiar or well-learned information (such as sounds, smells, and word meanings).

Effortful Processing

Encoding that requires attention and conscious effort.

Shallow Processing

Encoding on a basic level, based on the structure or appearance of words.

Deep Processing

Encoding semantically, based on the meaning of words; tends to yield the best retention.

Spacing Effect

The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.

Testing Effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information (also referred to as retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning).

Mnemonics

Memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Recall

A measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test.

Recognition

A measure of memory in which the person identifies items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test.

Relearning

A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again.

Encoding Specificity Principle

The idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it.

Mood-Congruent Memory

The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood.

Priming

The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.

Interleaving

A retrieval practice strategy that involves mixing the study of different topics.

Serial Position Effect

Our tendency to recall best the last items in a list initially, and the first items in a list after a delay.

Déjà Vu

That eerie sense that "I've experienced this before"; cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience.

Anterograde Amnesia

An inability to form new memories.

Retrograde Amnesia

An inability to remember information from one's past.

Proactive Interference

The forward-acting disruptive effect of older learning on the recall of new information.

Retroactive Interference

The backward-acting disruptive effect of newer learning on the recall of old information.

Misinformation Effect

Occurs when a memory has been corrupted by misleading information.

Reconsolidation

A process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again.

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories.

Source Amnesia

Faulty memory for how, when, or where information was learned or imagined; at the heart of many false memories alongside the misinformation effect.

Intelligence

The ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

General Intelligence ($g$)

According to Spearman and others, a general mental factor that underlies all mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.

Factor Analysis

A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score.

Savant Syndrome

A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

Crystallized Intelligence ($Gc$)

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Fluid Intelligence ($Gf$)

Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease with age, especially during late adulthood.

Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory

The theory that our intelligence is based on $g$ as well as specific abilities, bridged by $Gf$ and $Gc$.

Intelligence Test

A method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Mental Age

A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

Originally defined as the ratio of mental age ($\text{ma}$) to chronological age ($\text{ca}$) multiplied by $100$ ($\text{IQ} = \frac{\text{ma}}{\text{ca}} \times 100$); on contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of $100$.

Stanford-Binet

The widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

The WAIS and its companion versions for children are the most widely used intelligence tests; they contain verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.